Hi Greg,
I really appreciate your bringing moderate, well protected climbs to areas that have mostly R and X face climbs. They are a great introduction, are put up in good style and are a step towards perhaps getting more people to enjoy the beauty and history of the older climbs, especially Higgins routes. I know you respect the history and have done so much to preserve those climbs through your re-bolting efforts and knowledge in writing the guide books. Priceless! having said this, I personally love Higgins' routes and in speaking to him through writing, he wishes that his routes remain true to the original vision. You know that we've been re-bolting some of his routes in the hopes of keeping them alive. He has written on another thread about his thoughts on where new routes cross old ones and hoping that the history be preserved. I know you are very careful and considerate in that regard. So my advice would be against giving out bolts if there is a chance that they may change history. I can say that if I climb Sleeper and find any retro bolt that may even hint at a change of a Higgins route, that the bolt will be gone in minutes....

The Supertopo guidebook shows it as 5.8R in that section, with the text saying "... The next pitch shares a section and the belay with the runout third pitch of Sleeper, and the start of the last pitch of Jailbreak is also runout." The Reid/Falkenstein topo clearly shows the runout and calls the whole route PG/R (same idea as R-).

I'm not worked up, just bringing knowledge of the potential danger into the public forum. Its your route, put a bolt there if you like. I called this is a 4-star climb that was fun and good complement to On The Lamb but with a dangerous out of character runout. Don't get too butt hurt and caught up in misinterpreting my tone.

So while were at it, what is the definition of an R- rated climb, like shown in the guidebook for this climb?

Point understood Greg, the run is there to preserve history. But does that justify a potential 40 ft factor 2 fall? There are plenty of routes at TM that do have pitches that start with much worse, but none with your name on it. Does being the guidebook author give you the privilege to downplay the danger and give it an R-?

Gotta love Supertopo - you can get accused of running it out too much in the same sentence you get accused of overbolting! Funny how many people complain about a 5.8 having bolts every 10-15 feet ("5 feet") then go ahead and clip every bolt on a sport 5.12 with bolts that are truly 5 feet apart - and risk only a super clean fall (while if you fall on the 5.8 you hit lots).

That last bolted belay is on Sleeper (Higgins & Kamps '74). In fact the bolt before that belay is on Sleeper too - Sleeper traverses from the left to the right to get to that corner (where I'm sure they hoped to find pro, but found none and decided to drill a bolt). Then they ran it out 25 feet or so up and left along the dike to the cool hole to drill the belay (Jailbreak shares this exact section of Sleeper). So when we did Jailbreak I left the bolt kit hanging from the bolt before I got to that last bolt and then the belay on Sleeper (Roger Brown had replaced those bolts on Sleeper already - thanks Roger!).

Sleeper then climbs about 30 feet straight up (maybe slightly right) to a bolt. Jailbreak climbs left up the dike. There's a great stance or two that are pretty close to the belay, then some less stance friendly terrain to a bomber ledge to drill from. I did not want to bolt anywhere near Sleeper and get accused of retrobolting - and once you're far enough up the dike to not be retrobolting Sleeper then you're almost at the big stance. The runout is about the same as getting to that belay, but as you are now risking a factor 2 fall on the anchor, it is more risky - I can see the complaint.

Anyway as I've added bolts to many of my routes in Tuolumne (usually immediately after the FA but occasionally years later), I would have no objections to adding a bolt in there as long as it's far enough from Sleeper - I was trying to make sure no one climbing Sleeper would be tempted to use (or even notice) a bolt on Jailbreak.

This is a really fun way to finish out your climb of On The Lamb... if you aren't too worked from the crux pitch. It moves through some cool knob climbing in a great location for two pitches. The route is very well bolted (every five feet) except off the belay on the last pitch. For some reason the first ascensionists started the pitch with a 20-25 runout on 5.8-5.9 terrain. Seems slightly irresponsible, on part of the FA team, and dangerous for a climb that is very well protected the rest of the way.

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